2 PEEFACE. 



reared from the age of four to sixteen by 

 a she bear without ever seeing the face of 

 man. 



I have known several persons to be 

 maimed or killed in battles with bears, but 

 in every case it was not the bear that began 

 the fight, and in all my experience of about 

 half a century I never knew a bear to eat 

 human flesh, as does the tiger and like 

 beasts. 



Each branch of the bear family is repre- 

 sented here and each has its characteristics. 

 By noting these as you go along you may 

 learn something not set down in the school- 

 books. For the bear is a shy old hermit and 

 is rarely encountered in his wild state by 

 anyone save the hardy hunter, whose only 

 interest in the event is to secure the skin 

 and carcass. 



Of course, now and then, a man of science 

 meets a bear in the woods, but the meeting 

 is of short duration. If the bear does not 

 leave, the man of books does, and so we 

 seldom get his photograph as he really ap- 

 pears in his wild state. The first and only 

 bear I ever saw that seemed to be sitting 

 for his photograph was the swamp, or 

 "sloth," bear Ursus Labiatus found in 



